tea, would have explained his domestication in that household;--the
necessity, in fact, for domesticating among them some one who was always
buoyantly upon the surface, whose talk, in comfortably rounded sentences,
flowed along with a mild approximation to wit, whose sentiments were
never barbed with passion;--who was, to sum him up in one embracing
word, appropriate.

Mary, in addition to feeling repentant over her outbreak just before
Paula came in, experienced a sort of gratitude to him for being able to
sit squarely facing the sofa, untroubled by the absent thoughtful face
and the figure a little languorously disposed that confronted him. His
bright generalities were addressed to her as much as to the rest of them;
his smile asked the same response from her and nothing more.

Nothing short of an explosion that shattered all their surfaces at once
could have got a single vibration out of him. By that same token, when
the explosion did occur, he was the most helpless person there, the only
one of them who could really be called panic-stricken.

John had, at last, crossed the room and seated himself beside his wife.
He spoke to her in a low voice but her full-throated reply was audible
everywhere in the room.

"No, I'm not tired and I really don't want any tea. I've gone slack on
purpose because that's how I want to be till nine o'clock. I've just
eaten an enormous oyster stew with Rush. That's what we waited for."

John frowned. "My dear, you'll have ruined your appetite for dinner."

"I hope so," she said, "because I'm not to have any."